Today has just been one of those really fun frickin’ days. Seriously, it’s been GRAND.

I feel like I’m choking down sawdust. It takes me about a minute to chew, and force myself to swallow, each bite. I am NOT having a good day, food wise. Today is, of course, the day that my calorie count is being upped.

1700 calories. I can barely handle 1500 on a day to day basis, and it’s being upped. It’ll be a challenge. . . . . something new to conquer.

I didn’t have a meal plan done for this morning. . . . . . not that it really would have mattered, since my alarm didn’t go off, and I had no time to think about food, anyways. Thankfully, though, I have these great nutrient shakes to go that have saved my butt more than once. . . . . . . . so breakfast was fine. I scrounged together lunch, and because I’m having such a hard time today, I’ve planned a smoothie for dinner.

The past few days have just been difficult. Flashbacks, dreams, large amounts of change, and those stupid obsessive thoughts that WON’T go away. . . . . . . . . I’m tired, frustrated, and irritable, and I HATE food right now.

But. . . . . . . . what I do know is that this, too, will pass. This is just a stage; one that must be conquered. Ed has caught me at a weak point, and I can feel myself slipping. . . . . . . . but I’m grabbing for any hold that I can.

So much of treatment revolves around the development of “normal” eating patterns. Well, what is normal?

It’s typically defined as “eating when you’re hungry, stopping when you’re full, eating more than usual sometimes and trusting your body to handle it, and missing a meal and automatically compensating a safe amount.”

Oy vey. I’ve gotten so used to ignoring hunger completely, to allowing that feeling to carry me along to a heady high that I so often don’t notice it, or I mistake it for nausea. I’ve gotten better. I can recognize hunger 9 times out of 10 now. . . . . . . but I still have a habit of ignoring it completely if I’ve met my calorie count for the day.

Stopping when I’m full. Well, I’m bulimic. . . . . . . . full has no meaning for me. My entire life, no matter how much or how long I’ve restricted, I’ve been able to just randomly eat 15-20 pounds of food at once. My body doesn’t recognize “full” until I’m in pain and can barely move. Now, I’m so PSYCHED that hasn’t happened in well over a month. . . . . . Cannot even BEGIN to describe the giddy amazingness when I can go, “I haven’t binged!” Win. My point. Victory. All of those positive words that I most often respond, “But I haven’t done anything” to.

Overeating/indulging. Oh, I’m just fine to indulge. . . . . . . as long as it very neatly fits into my meal plan, and isn’t full of stupid carbohydrates. Which. . . . . . . . isn’t really indulging. Carbs scare me, for two reasons. First, the numbers are SO BIG. A food that I used to eat all the time has “Fat, .5, Protein, 4, Carbs 54”. Oy vey. That is a random, MASSIVE number. A number that is FAR too big for me to stomach. Second, I have no self-control. . . . . . at least, I didn’t. My body doesn’t trust me or like me. My first impulsive is to finish ANYTHING that’s in front of me, and lick the plate, too. My body doesn’t believe that I’m going to feed it again, or allow it to eat. I think that’s where much of my binging came from. . . . . . . from the intense and constant restriction. I was always scared to eat, because if I ate, I’d eat EVERYTHING.

Well, of course I would. . . . . . . . my body had broke through my self-control and was going to take EVERY advantage of this opportunity, which totally wigged me out and sent me into a purging frenzy, which in turn led back into the eating everything cycle because of the insulin dump. . . . . . . . . and just. . . . . . . yuck. *shakes head* I don’t miss that, at all.

Miss meals, or undereat. When I miss meals, I want nothing to do with the next one. I keep such a close eye on the numbers involved with my food that when I undereat, I automatically go to shortchange myself that, and just a little bit more. . . . . . . . If i’m not extremely careful to eat what I need, and measure and weigh it out, I end up roughly halfing everything. Left to my own devices, I would NEVER meet my calorie count. This one is just not for me. . . . . . . . . well, part of me wants it to be. . . . . . . but it’s not.

When I look over that list, I realize the ground that I have left to cover. . . . . . . . but that doesn’t invalidate the ground that I have covered. I have made progress, and there’s no need to look that far forward. Right now, I just need to concentrate on not purging, eating enough, and staying real with my meal plans.

I found a resource today that said the main goal of treatment of bulimia is to “cut down or even eliminate the binge eating and purging.”

It’s well known throughout the treatment community that the establishment of a consistent, steady, scheduled amount of daily calories is crucial in both the treatment of bulimia and anorexia.

I’m proud to say that I haven’t binged since March 5th, 2010. That’s well over a month, and the longest time I’ve gone since October 2008. I have deviated from my meal plan a couple of times and have eaten over my current daily calorie count, but it wasn’t an unhealthy amount, excessive, or mi even emotionally motivated.

My daily calorie count is 1500, and I’m struggling to continue to meet it. The first place my brain goes when I look at my meal plan first thing of a morning is, “What can I cut out? What can I halve? What can I replace?”

I force myself to follow the meal plan, but it’s difficult, especially because my weight is relatively stable right now. I’m walking 3-5 miles a day, and you’d figure that’d help, no?

I know the problem is likely that I’m not quite eating ENOUGH, and so my body is clinging to what I’m giving it. According to calorie calculators, I should be eating roughly 2100-2200 calories a day, and that’s if I put in “light physical activity” and “slow metabolism”. However, I can’t see myself consistently eating more. . . . . . I’m having a time and a half now.

My weight is stable, so I can’t really complain. . . . . . . at least I’m not gaining weight, which was one of my biggest fears when it came to recovery. I’m border-line overweight according to BMI charts; I didn’t, and don’t, have the room to gain weight.

I meal plan, force myself to eat what’s on it, and then force myself to ignore the little “Come on, you’re all alone; no one would know!” voice that Mia throws out CONSTANTLY.

Fun stuff, no? I’ve got a whole lot of change coming up in my life, and I’ll be the first to say that I’m looking forward to it.

I stopped weighing myself daily, and have switched to a once-weekly weigh-in for now. I was having a hard time watching that number bounce all over the place, even though logically, I know it’s all about water and what time ya last ate something.

The past few days have been a reservoir of pent-up emotion and feeling.

Al of my live, people have told me I’m incapable of emotion and of feeling. Called a sociopath and a loner, I embraced the image. Often giving people the impression they were talking to a brick wall, I come across as cold, distant, and impersonal.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m full of more emotion and feeling than most people can uncover in a lifetime. Shoved down into the crevices, cracks, and canyons that make up my very being, the emotion, pain, and feelings I’ve refused to face my entire life are starting to bubble up.

I’ve never felt more raw anger, rage, frustration, and aggression than I have over the past few days. It comes out of nowhere, and then, it sticks around for awhile. I’m not the explosive type. . . . . . . . I’m the quiet, simmering, polite type. Only those closest bear the brunt, and that’s unintentional. They come head to head with the force of my passive aggressive will, and only the strongest attempt to worm around it and through it. The rest give up, back off, and maintain a safe distance. Those who know me know. . . . . . the quieter and calmer I get, the more angry and upset I am.

I don’t think I’ve said 50 words out loud (beyond business phone calls and KY) to anyone in over 3 days.

What I’m coming to realize is that my eating disorder was not “a” tool that I used to re-direct these negative and caustic feelings, but that it was THE tool. When that tool failed me, or something was too potent to be tapped back down into its crevice, I’d turn to self-injury.

Well, I’m proud to say that this Sunday will be ONE HUNDRED days for me self-injury free. There’s not a doubt in my head that I’ll make it, because I refuse to get that close to this big of a number and not blow it out of the water.

I don’t know if this is a normal part of recovery or not, but it is what it is, and I ‘m certainly experiencing it.

A dear and special friend sent this to me, and I’ve spent the morning listening to it, and trying to soak in the message. . . . . . . it seems the longer this goes, the harder the fight is. . . . . . . which is ridiculous, since most things get better with time. For everyone else walking this road, may you get the same message out of this that I did. . . . . . . That we are loved, and that freedom is always worth fighting for!

I tried to be perfect,
But nothing was worth it,
I don’t believe it makes me real.
I thought it’d be easy,
But no one believes me,
I meant all the things I said.

If you believe it’s in my soul
I’d say all the words that I know
Just to see if it would show,
That I’m trying to let you know,
That I’m better off on my own.

This place is so empty,
My thoughts are so tempting,
I don’t know how it got so bad.
Sometimes it’s so crazy,
that nothing can save me,
But it’s the only thing that I have.

If you believe it’s in my soul,
I’d say all the words that I know,
Just to see if it would show,
That I’m trying to let you know,
That I’m better off on my own.

On my own…

I tried to be perfect,
It just wasn’t worth it,
Nothing could ever be so wrong.
It’s hard to believe me,
It never gets easy,
I guess I knew that all along.

If you believe it’s in my soul,
I’d say all the words that I know,
Just to see if it would show,
That I’m trying to let you know,
That I’m better off on my own.

As many of us know, our “food issues” begin and end with emotion. On some level, anorexia is often used to provide a focus other than emotional pain and numbness, and bulimia is, as well. When you’re too busy hating yourself and pouring everything you are into your disorder, it’s almost impossible to deal with any other emotion.

Failure at school.

It’s because I’m fat.

Failure at work.

It’s because I’m fat.

Argument with roommate.

It’s because I’m fat.

Death in the family.

It’s because I’m fat.

No matter what, our brain twists everything around so that we can ignore the pain of life and focus on one thing. . . . . . . . . how incredibly fat we are!

The past couple days have been an emotional roller coaster, and I’m not really sure why. I’ve noticed the ED thinking kicking it up a few notches, and I’ve watched that, and then, done my own thing. (Yay for ACT thinking. . . . . . . . or trying, at least.) I’ve done what I’ve needed to do, but it was out of sense of obligation, and, often, to avoid stirring the pot. I know I’ll end up eating, in the end, and so, fighting over it doesn’t accomplish much. . . . . . . . well, it does, but I’m not willing to go there.

I’ve gotten a scale to start tracking my weight, since I’ve increased my activity level a good bit, and KY and I will start fiddling with my calorie count based on that data. I’m worried about it, because I’ve developed kind of a wary working comfortableness with 1500 calories, but it just about kills me to go over that. I guess that’s why I’m “in recovery”, no?

Today, I’ve picked up some kind of stomach virus, and I threw up lunch. . . . . . . . . . and had to eat again. I can’t say that I was thrilled, but I also know why KY did that. . . . . . . . to avoid giving my body and brain an out. It can be so easy to say, “Well, I didn’t purge!” and think that’s the end of it. . . . . . when in all reality, I don’t know the difference between ACTUALLY throwing up, and willing myself to throw up anymore. I’ve hands-free purged for so long that I just don’t have the distinction.

So, while I still feel relatively horrible, I have, at least, eaten lunch, and am heading to get some much needed rest.